Khust, Ukraine “Praise Jesus” instead of “hello” is what one often hears in Transcarpathia, the westernmost region of Ukraine.
Transcarpathia, known for its pious, adventurous, mountaineers and people-smugglers, was once ruled by the Greek-Catholic Church, which retained Orthodox traditions but saw the pope as its spiritual leader. .
Transcarpathia had never been part of Russia until Soviet leader Joseph Stalin annexed the country in 1944, which led to the Russian Orthodox Church's top leaders joining the KGB, the main security agency during the Soviet Union.
“Soviet intellectuals forced all (Greek Catholic) priests into the pro-communist Orthodox Church or killed them in Siberia,” Oleh Dyba, a journalist and Transcarpathian theologian, told Al Jazeera.
This is the second year that Ukraine celebrates Christmas on December 25 after centuries of celebrating it on January 7 according to the Gregorian calendar which is still used by the Russian Orthodox Church.
But despite this, the former Russian-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is still the largest in the country.
Moscow Patriarch Kirillwho is the head of the largest Orthodox church in the world, was one of the people who cooperated with the KGB. He remains a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB chief.
Kirill is accused of purging opposition priests, has described Moscow's attack on Ukraine as a “holy war”, and has said. he said that Russian soldiers dying in Ukraine have their sins “washed away”.
“Russia is returning to the story of the old Crusades,” Andrey Kordochkin, an Oxford-educated theologian who left Kirill's church to join the Istanbul-based Patriarchate of Constantinople, told Al Jazeera.
More than 1,000 years ago, Constantinople sent Orthodox priests to baptize Kyivan Prince Vladimir, a pagan Viking whose country would give birth to what are now Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
The UOC was the largest and most important part of the Moscow religious empire with thousands of parishes and priests.
Some of them joined Russia's ideology after Moscow annexed Crimea and supported separatists in the southeastern region of Donbas in 2014.
“Their priest refused to pray for my cousin who was fighting in Donbas in 2015,” Filip, who lives in the Transcarpathian village of Chynadievo, told Al Jazeera. “Since then, I have never set foot in that church.”
Meanwhile, the separatists clashed with Ukrainian religious leaders.
One of the suspects was Archbishop Afanasy, who was brutally murdered in June 2014 in the terrorist “headquarters” of Luhansk.
He was blindfolded, placed against the wall and heard a shot that did not hit him.
He left Luhansk in his wrecked car whose brakes were deliberately damaged by terrorists, Afanasy told this reporter in 2018.
UOC vs OCU
In 2019, the Western-backed government of Ukraine established a new Orthodox Church in Ukraine (OCU) that belongs to the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
However, despite the abuse, coercion and persecution of religious leaders, the former Russian-affiliated UOC remains the main religious center in Ukraine.
It left Moscow and helped the war by receiving refugees and collecting humanitarian aid and donations of drones and medical equipment.
But many of its leaders have been threatened because of their true or perceived pro-Moscow sympathies.
One of these people is Metropolitan Mark, 73 years old with a white beard.
In the last two years, he has been accused of having a Russian passport – along with a dozen top leaders of the UOC, and building a $225,000 house in Sergiev Posad, a spiritual center outside Moscow where he studied in the 1970s.
Mark's nephew, driver and deacon Volodymyr Petrovtsy is facing desertion charges after fleeing his army in October and allegedly saying he did not want to fight “the Russians”.
One of the leaders of Metropolitan Mark told Al Jazeera that the claims about the house and the passport are false.
“I can tell you with all my heart that this is not true,” Vassily said, standing inside the church of Khust, whose walls and ceiling were full of Evangelical pictures and images.
However, he said that in 2018, the famous actor Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked for the help of UOC before the presidential vote.
Mr. Vassily said, without providing any evidence of this exchange, that Zelenskyy got help after he promised to convert to Christianity – but he did not comply with his “promise”.
“Since then, they have been punishing and persecuting us,” said Mr. Vassily.
Al Jazeera could not confirm Vassily's claims.
Since 2022, more than 100 priests of the UOC are suspected of being traitors, cooperating with officials appointed by Moscow in the occupied territories and spreading Russian propaganda, the Security Service of Ukraine, the main intelligence agency, said in August.
This is when the Verkhovna Rada, the parliament of Ukraine, banned the UOC “to strengthen national security and protect the legal system”.
'Too scary to try with my friends'
However, the migration is very counterproductive, according to a German researcher who has spent years studying Ukrainian religion and visiting many parishes.
Right-wing groups are forcing the UOC to surrender by force, seizing parishes and insulting their Christians who are fighting on the front lines, Nikolay Mitrokhin of the University of Bremen said.
“When Ukraine loses on the battlefield, it is dangerous to test our partners like this,” he told Al Jazeera.
The pressure violates Ukraine's constitution and will attract opposition from the West, endangering military and financial aid, he said, adding that the pressure gives the Kremlin a valid reason to oppose the “Kyiv neo-Nazi junta party,” spreading anti-Ukrainian messages. , and appropriate parishes in the Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine.
On December 16, famous chef Evhen Klopotenko filmed a Christmas dinner in the canteen of Kyiv-Pecherska Lavra, the largest religious center in Kyiv.
Most of the past challenges are UOC's.
The Kremlin responded to the news with disdain – and shared it with a Russian audience in the former Soviet Union.
“They take over churches to turn them into squares,” Nilufar Abdullaeva, a self-proclaimed “Russian patriot” who lives in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, told Al Jazeera. “He lost all shame.”
The government's ban on the UOC will only force it underground, and “soon it will come out of there with the image of a martyr and a winner”, Mitrokhin said.
Finally, the suspension of parishes can damage and destroy thousands of houses that need maintenance, repair and heating during winter in Ukraine.
“Soon, serious damage to the frescoes and then to the building begins,” Mitrokhin said. Therefore, a large part of Ukrainian culture will disappear.